This week, it’s headlines that make you do a doubletake, like “Child’s Stool Great for Use in Garden.” Martha and Grant discuss a few of these bloopers, also known as crash blossoms. Also, if you unthaw something, are you freezing it or unfreezing it? Do hotcakes really sell that fast? What’s the likelihood of getting people to use a new gender-neutral pronoun? And Grant shares the story behind the term knucklehead.

Some call them crash blossoms, those funny turns of phrase that copy editors may or may not intend, like “Milk Drinkers Turn To Powder.” More about crash blossoms in this article in Good by Mark Peters.

Where’d we get the expression they’re selling like hotcakes?

A Pensacola man says he’s invented a gender-neutral pronoun, and wants to know how to popularize it. He’s not the first to try, as shown by linguist Dennis Baron’s chronology of failed attempts to create and popularize epicene pronouns.

If a recipe calls for “unthawed” corn, is that corn supposed to be frozen or unfrozen?

Quiz Guy John Chaneski has a quiz called “Scronsonants.” The object is to guess two-word phrases containing a pair of words starting with the same three consonants. Here’s one: “I get a particular joy from the pain of others, but I had to learn how to do it. So I attended ___________.”

A Texas listener says her infant daughter is soothed by white noise. She’s curious as to why it’s called white noise instead of gray noise.

A Southern California woman says she was caught up short when she enthused, “It’s the bomb,” and a 12-year-old had no idea what she was saying. Does our slang need to change as we grow older? Why do we say “the bomb”?

In an earlier episode, the hosts talked about the slang term bobo, meaning “stupid” or “inferior.” Many listeners wrote in to discuss about their own use of bobo and its variants, and to point out that bobos also refers to a kind of cheap canvas shoes. Grant reports on some of their emails.

How should you pronounce the word jewelry? That prompts a conversation about the transposition of letters and sounds called metathesis—not only in jewelry, but many others including realtor, foliage, larynx, and introduce.

Here’s a handy word: fomite. It means “an inanimate object that can transmit an infectious agent” like a doorknob handle or a comb infested with head lice. It also has a picturesque Latin origin. Martha explains, and shares a related word: Dracula sneeze.

A woman from Dallas wants to know about a verbal habit she grew up with in her Cajun French speaking Louisiana family. It’s use of repetition for emphasis, as in, “it’s hot, but it’s not hot hot.” Grant explains how reduplications, or a repetition of a word or part of a word, appear in many languages, including Cajun French. For more, check out Albert Valdman’s French and Creole in Louisiana, and Mary Ellen Scullen’s paper “New Insights Into French Reduplication“.

How should you pronounce the word jewelry? That prompts a conversation about the transposition of letters and sounds called metathesis—not only in jewelry, but many others including realtor, foliage, larynx, and introduce.

I first thought ‘colonel’ fit into this list, but realized it did not.

However, my daughter had a little angel doll she called, “Tithomy,” named after our at-the-time preacher, Timothy.

Emmett

2009/12/154:46am

Christopher Murray

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Are they and them not the correct pronouns to use when the person’s gender is indeterminate?

2009/12/157:43am

Word Nerd

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I think they/them is becoming an acceptable gender-neutral pronoun.

2009/12/157:46am

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As a speech pathologist, I’m always very self-conscious about saying larynx. I probably overthink it, but as the “expert” I don’t want to mispronounce it.

2009/12/159:51am

mpg

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If ‘fomite’ has its roots in starting fires and such, is it at all related to ‘foment’?

-mpg

2009/12/159:53am

mpg

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So we heard knucklehead was popularized in WWII, but little was given about how/why is was first coined. Why “knuckle”, one wonders? Similar in spirit to “bonehead”, e.g. a “bone-headed” (stupid, ill-considered) action?

Usage note:
Inflammable and flammable both mean “combustible.” Inflammable is the older by about 200 years. Flammable now has certain technical uses, particularly as a warning on vehicles carrying combustible materials, because of a belief that some might interpret the intensive prefix in- of inflammable as a negative prefix and thus think the word means “noncombustible.” Inflammable is the word more usually used in nontechnical and figurative contexts: The speaker ignited the inflammable emotions of the crowd.
(“inflammable.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 15 Dec. 2009. .)

Someone once wrote (and I’m paraphrasing): Many people think “inflammable” means the opposite of “flammable,” when in fact they both mean combustible. If it would save any lives, then by all means use FLAMMABLE.

2009/12/152:45pm

johng423

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crash blossom –
The headline read: “5 Women to Become 500 Princesses”

As it turns out, the newspaper article was about female college students who had won positions in the beauty pageant for the Speedway 500 car race in Indianapolis that year. (Oh, THAT “500”!)

When I first read the headline (before reading the article), I was quite startled and perplexed.
I asked a co-worker how this would be possible. He replied, “Slice ’em r-e-a-l thin.”

2009/12/153:10pm

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On our last trip to Washington D.C., my wife and I had the opportunity to visit the Newseum. Upon first entering, we stopped in the restrooms and both came out laughing. They had many of the wall tiles reproducing various crash blossoms. One sure item on our gift-shop list was their book of these collected crash blossoms, Correct Me If I’m Wrong. Since this is a news museum, all of the quotes come complete with reference citations.

My mother ground her teeth over “liberry” (for library), “Feberary” (for February) and “artic” (for Arctic”). I’ve practically given up on newscasters who talk about the “goverment” or “baskaball.” But it was a bit alarming to hear a major team referred to as the “St. Louis Carnals.”

There is a word for saying “Joo-ler-y”, “ree-la-tor”, “lare-nicks” or “foil-age”

I haven’t caught up on my podcasts yet….I can figure out the mispronounciation of realtor, larynx, and foliage….but what are the various pronounciations of jewelry? I know, I know…if I have to ask, I’m probably saying it wrong.

2009/12/1710:09am

Word Nerd

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My pet peeve is “kindergarten” being pronounced “kindy-garten”.

2009/12/1710:26am

Glenn

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Word Nerd said:
what are the various pronounciations of jewelry?

These two are listed in many dictionaries:
/dÊ’u(w)É™lri:/ Joo-wul-ree
/dÊ’u:lri:/ Jool-ree

This one is the bugaboo:
/dÊ’u:lÉ™ri:/ Joo-luh-ree

2009/12/1710:35am

Word Nerd

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Yup, I mispronounce “jewelry”. Oh well.

2009/12/1711:39am

Glenn

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Don’t be so hard on yourself. It is time to make yourself heard. There are lots of people who don’t mind ironing on Wednesdays. You might even enjoy Worscestershire sauce.

For the record, I fall into the two-syllable pronunciation minority, ie. jewel is monosyllabic and rhymes with cool, yule, gruel (don’t judge me!).

2009/12/1711:45am

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LOL, but I do pronounce ‘February, climactic, arctic, and picture’ correctly….but not ‘often’

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